September 8, 2011

Wizbang calls attention to this test, which has been around a while. I knew I'd taken it before, but I took it again. A re-test. Some people have told me I've gotten more "right wing," sometimes attributing the phenomenon to my intimacy with Meade.

128 comments:

It needs a Z-axis for grumpiness. My experience is that people become more grumpy and less libertarian with age. When the government dangles the Social Security carrot in front of you, it's hard not to like them. And how dare those young people try to take that away from you?

In the words of the President, this test offered too many false choices. There were several either/or questions when I thought, "What's the difference?" But my results were 8.62/0.72. I think the .72 results from my idea that there's a lot of stuff people shouldn't do but should be allowed to do.

DBQ the statement was business/manufacturers are more important than artists/writers - so I disagreed strongly. All are equally important in their own way, and many artist/writers are quite successful businesswise... That gets your "both"

We know the evils of Economic Right/Authoritarianism, but what about the evils of Economic Left/Libertarianism? What about the debt problems in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy? Doesn't economic implosion count for something?

I came across much more moderately than I probably really am as I do believe in reasonable regulation.

Same with the question: "Are the rich (I think they mean high income earners) taxed to high"? I said no, as I think they are taxed just about right. But a hard core socialist would also say yes, because she would think we need to confiscate wealth.

Peter Hoh beat me to it. But that single party statements just the best example of a problem that runs through the whole test. If there was a button for "There's no way I can agree or disagree with such a simplistic statement," I would have hit it every time. And the biases of the people coming up with the statements are painfully apparent.

I came out dead in the center, but this is primarily because my responses were on both sides of the underlying issues they were trying to get at, depending on how the questions were phrased. For example, I was all over the map on the social responsibility of corporations issue, but I promise you the people drafting the statements would consider me to be pretty far right of center on that issue -- but not so far out that I agree with statements that reflect their biased idea of what someone on that side of my issue actually thinks.

People's beliefs are too nuanced to be determined by yes/no answers. Also, there is a huge difference between morality and politics. There are many things I consider immoral that I believe should be legal for adults.

He tended to be a social conservative but a believer in free will, mildly resistant against Roman authority but not actively, as he promoted personal responsibility above everything else. He was a faithful Jewish male of his era in most respects, though he made some leaps in distinctive directions, so was anti-authoritarian partly but also very authoritarian when it came to God's ultimate judgment.

Which means he comes out mostly as a moderate in both issues, which is probably why everyone got mad at him.

Nina, you add a depth of economic cluelessness that is unfathomable. You might even say your views are unbalanced. You may think that it would be nice to live in the world that you imagine, but actually you are very fortunate to be living in America in the 21st century, where we have the accumulated benefits of over 200 years of free market economic success.

Although I think the test is too brief and simplistic to offer anything more than a crude estimation of one's actual position along this dual continuum, and I think I am not actually so extreme as these results would indicate, here is how I scored:

"Click on their graph for the 2008 primary contestants: they're putting every Democrat but Kucinich on the *Right*."

You have to remember that this was based on what they said, not on what they actually believe and do. My guess is that a large percentage of politicians, left and right, would measure pretty high on the authoritarian scale if they gave honest and accurate answers. Certainly this is true with a good percentage of lefties these days.

About the same Milton Friedman, yes! I wonder if there is a US politician that falls in this area? I think most GOP pols are lower in the Economic score and more authoritarian. And the Dems will be to the left of the center line.

I meant that as, you didn't like where you came out on the results, more than I think you're Hitler. Thatcher isn't that far from Hitler according to this test.

We disagree what is authoritarian. I think threatening a state with the National Guard and harassing intellectuals to silence those who disagree with you authoritarian, but the right loves that kind of stuff. Or cheering the death penalty.

Economic Left/Right: 7.38Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.10Almost Friedmann.we Catholics are authoritarian...I was educated as catholic. Economic liberalism was born inside the Catholic Church, the jesuists from the school of Salamanca created it. Adam Smith work was based in the books by Turgot, professor of La Sorbonne and the Abbe Condillac.The majority rule was a proposal of Marsilio Di Padua, a conciliarist and reformer of the monastic rule that opposed the Pope and supported the Emperor.The fuero de los españoles preceded in 20 years the Charta Magna.Montaigne , a catholic victim of both catholics and protestans convinced Henry the Fourth to pass the toleration decrre that gave born to the freedom of concience

"Where would YOU put Jesus?"he was a keynesian : Read the three servants parable: To invest is very good. To save is good but not so much(was he a true keynesian?) and to keep it below the bed is a mortal sin.Pay your taxes

Please do. We desperately need more people like you commenting more. We used to have more, I miss it. I suspect it is related to the run of bad luck the left has been having lately, but ideas you still believe in are worth putting out there and debating. It's just strangers who you will never have to face, no matter how ugly they are, which is some good luck.

Seriously, your point of view is not well represented in either numbers or quality. I know you would improve that.

Ann, I took that test many years ago and retook it again today, and find myself essentially where you are. (A little more to the left on economic issues, but still right of center -- economic left/right 0.62; social libertarian/authoritarian -3.08) What I find interesting is that the results page identifies no well-known politicians within the vicinity of what the test identifies as our "political compass." What do you think that means?

Also ditto what bagho said. There is no purpose in talking into an echo chamber. Spirited and friendly disagreement, discourse and debate are welcome.

Who knows, you might be able to change a few minds or sway a few opinions.

It is telling that the majority of us who claim conservatism are fiscally on the right but are mild to strong libertarians on social issues. Trying to pigeonhole all conservatives as being in the Falwell style (right authoritarian social repressives) is just false.

I'm libertarian left, but I hate the books in my group...nothing but whining about the rich and W, which is completely opposite of my beliefs. I could read the books of the libt right and authoritarian right

I'm probably one of the few people here who is more socially conservative than economically conservative, but I'm also quite a Western conservative, which is a lot less authoritarian, imposing sort of social conservatism.

I've always had trouble with other people's interpretation of "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth", because I always interpreted it in its most reasonable way as "Let the punishment fit the crime".

Even Jerry Falwell was not a social repressive. Liberty University did not and does not foster intolerance. There is no racism there. There is a special dorm for unmarried pregnant students. They are not ostracized. Their education is not interrupted. I have a relative that had a multiracial child out of wedlock while at Liberty University. She stayed in that dorm and gave the child up for adoption and also completed her degree. She loved and respected Jerry Falwell--BTW she is Catholic. I was surprised at the long line of students who lined up to shake his hand and speak to him after the graduation. No matter his harsh language, he practiced Christian love.

"When the government dangles the Social Security carrot in front of you, it's hard not to like them. And how dare those young people try to take that away from you?"

Old, grumpy and thinking, "That's MY money, dammit."

One of my professors (a PhD, yes she is) went off on Ayn Rand (we got to the part of Greek Mythology about Atlas) and she was outraged that Rand had filed for SS when she got old. (She also said that there probably weren't any Tea Party Libertarian people in her class (of 825) because they didn't go to school, that Libertarians were Republicans who smoked pot, and that they had all the money (despite not going to school) and then we got to look at another picture of a Greek urn. It was amazing. The young man sitting next to me with the jar-head hair cut wasn't cracking so much as a smile.) She felt that Rand was a hypocrite (I believe she also used the term "skanky old bitch") but I figure... she's only a hypocrite if she never paid into social security in the US... and that I don't know.

I think that the questions are off. I came out as 4.5 on economics, which doesn't surprise me, but only -0.82 on social whatever-it-was. But asking social issue questions of a libertarian doesn't mean anything. Yes, I think that we've gone overboard on public sexual expression or whatever it said, but that says nothing at all about how authoritarian I'm inclined to be about it. The whole point is how much you feel the need to enforce your preferences on others, not about what your preferences *are*.

I suspect that the quiz makes the same fatal mistake of many liberals and interprets sexual liberty as the measure of all social issue liberty while ignoring (as someone mentioned) the various social things that liberals tend to be authoritarian about.

The problem with the test and graph is that the lower left quadrant is basically self-contradictory. I.e., if you favor a controlled economy (the left) then you favor authoritarianism, whether you admit it or not, and whether you disagree with some forms of authoritarianism or not. The fact that there are different forms of authoritarianism is what allows at least a self-consistent spread on the right side of the graph. I.e., you might favor free economic activity but want to control other kinds of activity.

I wonder how my opinion about abstract art is an indicator of whether I am "economic left or right" or authoritarian/libertarian? I think it has more to do with the survey makers stereotypes about "liberals and conservatives.' There are many such questions in this survey. I think it's rubbish.

My economic number is not that close to yours (0.88 vs. 2.00), which probably comes from my degree in finance. But, my Social Libertarian/Authoritarian number is almost exactly the same (-3.64 vs. -3.79). Fascinating.

And puts into question my self-perception of "fiscally conservative/socially liberal". Guess I'll have to start calling myself "fiscally moderate/socially slightly less moderate than liberal". Doesn't roll off the tongue quite the same.

The test is way off. I'm very close to Edwards and Obama and I've voted for Republicans all my life. The questions are overly simplistic or insultingly distorted and this one was entirely nonsensical/apolitical:

"When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things."

I think I'm more libertarian and less right-wing than this indicates, overall. As noted, many questions present false dilemmas. Others contain premises with which I cannot agree. "Should rich people have the right to better health care", for example. I don't believe in involuntary servitude, so I don't think anyone has a "right" to compel someone else to provide them with health care. I had to assume they were actually asking if people should be allowed to purchase services of their choosing with their own money, with which I Strongly Agree. But that's not what they asked, and maybe it's not what they scored.